Friday, April 12, 2013

Last Tuesday I attended a talk at the Brookings Institute - a DC based non-profit think tank - titledUS
Alberta Energy Relations: A Conversation with Allison Redford. I
attended with the full intention of having a conversation about Tar Sands
extraction and the climate consequences with Premier Allison Redford - the lead
government official from Alberta, Canada. When I arrived I quickly realized that I was
not going to be having a conversation with anyone. In this form of "conversation"
the Brookings Institute asks audience participants to write down their
questions on a card that get passed up, then a woman chooses which questions
get asked and the Chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Association, Daniel Yergin get's to talk to Premier Redford about the question.

My viewpoint looking at Premier Redford and Alex Yergin

According
to the dictionary the definition of conversation is "The informal exchange
of ideas by spoken words." Instead of having a conversation -which by
everyone's connotation implies an exchange of ideas with voices - the Brooking
Institute chose to assault and kick-out anyone who sought to use their voices to have a real
conversation with Premier Allison Redford. By the end of my time at the hearing, I would be assaulted by security guards and removed from the room for attempting a conversation about the climate impacts of tar sands extraction and proliferation. Here's the video and below is my story. Here's a link to a major news outlet that covered "the interruption." Here's a link to the entire conversation via webcast made available by the Brookings Institute.

Monday, April 1, 2013

As many of
you know, I just completed a three year walk across America picking up trash
the entire way called Pick Up America.
I am writing this to tell one of many stories about our country that I was able
to witness firsthand.I am also writing this to build momentum for the Stone Soup Rally happening next Monday at the FDA in College Park. (RSVP here). Here's the flyer for the rally.

For about
1,400 miles of the American heartland I saw the same thing. Everyday, I'd gaze
into what seemed to be an endless field of corn or soybean. I'd see rivers
choked with sediment and on particularly humid days I could even smell the
pesticides hanging in the air. It was a far cry from the "down on the farm"
vision I had always had for the Midwest. Aside from the small towns, the
midwest seemed to be one giant corn and soybean field spanning to the north,
east, south and west for more than 10 states.

Growing
just one or two heavily subsidized crops throughout our hearltand is an
environmental travesty in itself. It causes rapid degradation of two of life's
most precious resources - our soil and our flowing water. It requires huge
amounts of climate altering, fossil fuel fertilizers to produce our food. It
pours herbicides and pesticides all over our countryside killing bees and the
diversity of bugs that can provide resilience to evolving pathogens. It keeps
diversity of life, the staple of planetary evolution, at an abysmal low. And it
is only this way only because large agriculture industries seek to control our
entire seed bank and food chain to maximize profits.

After these
GMO corn and soybeans are processed they are mostly transferred to CAFO's
-Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations - to make the meat most American's
believe to be the staple of a "real meal." The other corn and
soybeans are made into intensely processed foods that come into our lives as
fast food, TV dinners, and high fructose corn syrup. While this may seem to be
an overstatement to some, with all I've seen and heard I stand by this honestly
- The primary reason for disease and illness in America is this process of
producing our food. And it's all done this way because there are a vast
majority of people who don't know any better and with their ignorance are supporting
a fossil fuel drenched status quo that is on track to destroying a livable
planet.